'The Tree at Christmas' by Peter Hodges

He was the only one who heard the tree. He, the youngest of the household, the last child, the forgotten child some used to say. His were the only ears to hear the tree. The stories were for him and him alone, and this the boy knew. Each year at Christmas the tree told a new story, each more magical and more mysterious than the one before. Each year the tree was taken from its place in the forest, put into the tub, and brought to its place next to the hearth. In those days it was an open fire, a blaze of logs that sent sparks shooting like stars up into the great wide chimney. The boy would sit and watch them as the tree told its story, until the fire died and it was time for bed. In the morning the hearth would be spread with ash as white as the snow outside, and the tree would be silent. No more than a tree from the forest, or so it was said.
But the tree spoke to the boy. When the others were out and he was alone, he would sit quietly and listen. At first it would whisper and he would strain to hear. Then it became louder as if enthused by the tale it had to tell, then louder still, often to shake with laughter, branches trembling, needles falling to the floor. Sometimes its voice would boom right from its very centre, from roots set in the tub of dark forest earth, as if the whole wild forest was inside bursting to be heard.
The boy was too small to go out into the forest. All day he would sit by the fire, comfortable in the little chair that had been made for him. So close to the tree that its branches brushed his cheeks. Pale cheeks, but warm. The tree had a name for the boy, once whispered like a secret, which it was, and the boy's pale cheeks warmed the more. The tree did that, made the boy glow with its story. The boy would listen all day long, until darkness came. Then the others would return, his mother and father, brothers and sisters, bringing with them all their rush of noise and coldness, thrusting their tingling fingers toward the fire. Then the magic of the tree was gone.
Once when the boy told the others what he had heard they merely smiled and said it was his imagination. They would humour him, content that he was content, it eased their minds to know that he was, in his own way, not alone while they were out. But the boy did not listen to them. He listened only to the tree. Each year as Christmas drew close, he would hear stories that brought happiness and joy, that were magical and full of wonder. Yet they were told piece by piece, a jumble of happenings. As if the tree enjoyed making a riddle out of the tale, it was for the boy to unravel what the story was about, its beginning and end and all that between. One year the story was about a king in a far off land who planted new forests, next was of a wise man who lived among the trees, another was of a forester who grew many kinds of trees. But best of all were those stories of adventure and mystery and always ending with the forest full of joy and happiness. And every year the last part of the story, that part that made all the rest fit together, was told on the last day of Christmas, and last of all was whispered his secret name as if he was one who did these wondrous things. Then, after all the festivities were over, and the cottage fell quiet, then so did the tree, as if making ready to leave its place by the hearth and return to its place in the forest.
When the spring came the tree would grow a little more. Now it would listen to the trees around for these were bigger trees and knew so much more. The wind would fill their branches, their breath would fill the forest, and their whispers would follow on the wind. The tree would grow and listen, grow taller and stronger, and listen more. The warm summer sun coloured and ripened its needles, and all the goodness of the earth filled to their very tips. When autumn came, and the shortening days brought first frosts, the tree thought of the hearth in the cottage, and the warmth there, and the boy in his chair, ready to hear again the tales it had to tell from the forest.
But then came the Christmas when boy was grown into a man. Now the tree did not return to the hearth. The empty tub was cast aside. Now the man was busy for he had family of his own. Then his youngest, a boy as he once was, asked of the forest, and the man related the stories told to him by the tree. But passing years had mellowed the memory. Now they were the man's stories and not those of the tree. Yet he was reminded of his time sitting and listening, the tree laughing, needles tumbling, the tub shaking. That Christmas the man went out to look for the tree. He went alone, anxious that he may not find it. The snow was thick in the air and on the ground, and the wind was strong. The man filled his chest and pushed on into the forest. The trees waved and swung, their whispering branches now a noise so loud that no other sound could be heard. They seemed to beckon the man. "You must come," they called to him. "You must come, you must hurry, hurry, hurry…" And with his powerful stride he thrust through the snow, thrust through bramble and thicket until he came to the tree. And there the wind paused, the noise became a whisper, the forest fell silent. The tree lay on the ground before him broken and covered with snow. The man spoke to it. He re-told the stories he knew, but they were his now and not those of the tree, and there came no answer. He hurried back, found his son, but had nothing to tell except that the tree was fallen, and the stories gone, and the secret name he had been given gone also.
"No, Father," cried the boy. "I know the name. It is hidden in the stories you told me many, many times. Take me to the tree. Let me speak to it."
Sweeping his son up onto his shoulder the man set out into the forest once more. Driven along now by boy's laughter, the small hands tugging at his hair, through snow and bramble, to that place. Here, the man set down the boy on the fallen trunk, and gently at first, as if unsure, the first stories began. And hidden in them, among the riddles and twists, was the name the tree had given. Beneath his feet, the boy felt the trunk tremble. A little snow fell away. Then more as the boy, encouraged now by his father, raised his voice, unravelled the riddles. A shiver came, the old tree shook. The trees around waved and whispered, and the boy paused to hear, to see around, to look where he was told to look, and there tucked beside the old trunk, nurtured and protected, was the youngest, smallest little tree the boy had ever seen.
"Take it," the forest around seemed to say. "Take it and listen to the stories it has to tell."
Carefully, the man eased the sapling from the ground. Undoing his shirt he laid it against his warm skin. They hurried back to the cottage, the tub was quickly found and filled with soil, and the tree was set down by the hearth and there to feel the warmth of the fire.
Now, each year at Christmas, it is again the youngest who listens to the tree. The others never ask. Only he will the know the secrets told of the forest by the tree at Christmas.